Editorial: New man for a new era at Huntsville City Schools

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama _ For all of the challenges facing Huntsville's next school superintendent, he will take the helm of a system that has historically been the envy of Alabama's other major urban school systems.

No other metropolitan school system in Alabama has retained the community buy-in that Huntsville has enjoyed over the years from active PTAs, strong corporate support and impressive financial backing from mayors and the city council who passed special tax districts and dedicated sales tax appropriations.

But incoming superintendent Dr. Casey Wardynski, a retired Army colonel and presently chief financial officer of the Aurora, Colo., public school system, has his work cut out for him.

The recent layoffs of hundreds of employees and a just-released demographer's study recommending the closing of at least nine schools has hurt teacher morale and eroded public confidence. Wide gaps in student achievement between schools beg for major changes.

Our schools need the kind of can-do military spirit we expect him to bring to Huntsville. His hiring Thursday night by a 3-2 vote underscores just how divided the city school board - and its constituents - are over how to prioritize the rebuilding.

Wardynski will need the courage of a military man to face whatever is hurled his way. But he needs the passion of a patriot to recruit everyone to join the cause.

The finalists boiled down to one with a strong academic and teaching background, and Wardynski, who supporters say demonstrated strong fiscal management and leadership skills.

School board members Jennie Robinson, David Blair and Topper Birney supported Wardynski. Board members Laurie McCaulley and Alta Morrison backed Dr. Daniel Brigman, superintendent of the Macon County, N.C., school system. McCaulley and Morrison vowed after the meeting to work with him.

Saying "we have a culture that needs to be changed," Robinson touted Wardynski as a man who can stand up to the interest groups in the system.

"If he can do it for the Army, he can do it for us," she said.

Wardynski certainly doesn't fit the superintendent profile of the education establishment. He retired in May 2010 as an Army colonel directing the U.S. Army Office of Economic and Manpower Analysis at West Point. He's been financial officer of Aurora's school system for just under a year.

Area leaders have said all along that the next superintendent could very well be a non-traditional candidate. Wardynski could be a superintendent who does not do things the conventional way. That can work, but it will depend largely on his ability to forge good working relationships with those who disagree with him and who he names to his team.

Huntsville has shown it can rally behind its schools when there's a mission. It did so in the early 1960s when it peacefully integrated its schools when other systems across the state fought it. Federal defense dollars were at stake, but many in the community also recognized that it was the right thing to do.

The community rose to the occasion again when it supported property tax increases to support unprecedented school system growth during the NASA buildup years.

And it came through again with the creation of special tax increment financing districts to build schools in high growth areas on the city fringes, and to rebuild Lee and Huntsville High schools in the city core.

Over the years Huntsville City Schools lost its status as an academically outstanding system in a state where the schools are, by and large, mediocre at best.

There are some positives, for sure. The system's overall graduation rate this year was 90.38 percent and 1,354 seniors nabbed scholarships totaling $31.4 million.

Still, Huntsville students as a group barely break mediocre on standardized tests. Student performance in some sectors is simply inexcusable.

That has to change. Wardynski must demonstrate he expects top performance in the central office and among his principals, and he must hold them accountable to performance goals. He needs a strong school board with the courage to make the often politically tough decisions and is fortuitous enough to recognize problems before they occur.

And he needs a community that will help him buck the status quo.

Ed Starnes, former chair of the Huntsville school board and now chair of the city Planning Commission, said Wardynski is a good fit. "He's the greatest risk of the three candidates but he has the greatest upside. We need somebody to lead the system, grab it by the scruff of the neck, and lead it forward. It will take a few years to recover but it will get there. No school system will ever be better than the demands of the public."